The Mississippi State Bulldogs are one of the surprise teams of this young college football season, having gone from unranked in the preseason AP Top 25 to a tie for third in this week's poll on the strength of big early-season SEC wins over LSU and Texas A&M. Their biggest test yet comes this weekend at home against the No. 2 Auburn Tigers.
A big reason for their success is the play of junior quarterback Dak Prescott, who completed 70 percent of his passes in those two conference wins, with four touchdowns and no interceptions, and rushed for 182 yards and four more TDs. He has reminded some fans of former Auburn and current Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton (Gus Malzahn was asked to compare the two this week) for his size and dual-threat ability, and he's even coming up in Heisman discussions after the Bulldogs' hot start.
I'm not here to make the Newton comparison (for starters, Prescott is about five inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter than Cam, at 6-foot-1, 235 pounds) or make any Heisman picks, but I did study Prescott's tape this week with an eye toward his NFL potential